


shifting the sun

by LittleMissMandalore



Category: Redwall Series - Brian Jacques
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-25
Updated: 2018-08-25
Packaged: 2019-07-02 06:29:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15790890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleMissMandalore/pseuds/LittleMissMandalore
Summary: Mara makes the journey to Salamandastron. She doesn't make it alone.Written for Redwall Fic Month Week 3: SUNSHINE.





	shifting the sun

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from Diana Der-Hovanessian's poem "Shifting the Sun".

            They have been traveling for two moons, crossing rivers and climbing hills and trekking through the forest as fast as Mara’s ancient, gnarled paws can carry them. In the stories, the journey through Mossflower to the edge of the western sea is arduous, painful, frightening and exhilarating all at once. And it’s not as if they’ve had it easy – they’ve been set upon by two pairs of vermin, and they wound up several leagues off-course after hitching a ride with a tribe of Guosssom shrews, but those problems were simple to deal with. When it came to the rats, Mara knocked their heads together and sent them on their way, and once the mistake was explained to the Guosssom shrews, the shrews were happy to bring them back. She didn’t even need to level her brand new spear.

            In short, this journey to Salamandastron has not been the adventure Dawnstripe was expecting.

            “Why do we have to stop so early?” Dawnstripe asks as Mara drops her pack in the shade of an ancient oak. “The sun’s still high.”

            “There’s not enough time to make it through the dunes before dark,” Mara says. She eases herself down to the ground and Dawnstripe drops her spear, hurries to help. “Trust me – we don’t want to be caught in the dunes after dark.”

            Dawnstripe remembers from the story. “The lizards,” she says. “But you were younger than I was when you and Pikkle got captured – and I’ve got a weapon. Why shouldn’t we keep going?”

            Mara looks up at her. Dawnstripe imagines she can see all the things Mara wants to say. Because I’m old and you’ve never used that weapon in a real fight, because if something’s hungry enough it doesn’t care how old and big you are, because I’m tired and we’ve traveled far enough. Not to mention the ultimate destroyer of dissension – because I said so. But she says none of them. Instead she says, “We can keep going if you want.”

            She holds out her paws to Dawnstripe. “Help me up?”

            Oddly enough, this is worse than _because I said so_. Now Dawnstripe just feels bad, like she’s dragging a tired old badger through the dunes for no reason. She goes to retrieve her spear and sits down next to Mara, laying the weapon across her lap.

            Mara taps the point of the spear. “Turn it around. Never point your weapon at a friend.”

            “Right.” Dawnstripe makes the necessary change. “You know, you can just tell me if you’re tired.”

            “I’m not tired,” Mara says. She points at the horizon, where a wash of dark gray is beginning to cover the sky. “Even if we could make it across the dunes before nightfall, there’d be no shelter from the storm.”

            Dawnstripe could sleep through a storm, but the rain and chill would make Mara’s stiff joints hurt worse. Even so, she still bristles at the thought of waiting out the rain under this tree. “How long are we going to have to wait?”

            “The storm will blow itself out by morning,” Mara says, digging in the pack for provisions. “We’ll move on then.”

            A rough western wind blows into Dawnstripe’s face, ruffling her headstripes. “How do you know that? It seems like it’s coming in pretty fast.”

            “I grew up here,” Mara says. “I just know.”

            Dawnstripe falls asleep to the sound of rain hitting the leaves. She wakes up in the morning to bright sunshine and a warm, gentle breeze blowing up from the south.

            Mara _just knows_ a lot of things. Like why the path on the right is safer than the path on the left when they look exactly the same, or why it’s better to catch two of the smaller fish than one of the big ones. Dawnstripe feels like she’ll never learn all the things Mara knows, even though she studies. Does she ever study. She’s been studying ever since she heard Mara tell Abbess Clary that she planned to leave the Abbey for Salamandastron. Since Dawnstripe decided that if Mara left, Dawnstripe was going with her.

            So she’s memorized lists of healing herbs and studied with Sister Agate in the infirmary. She practiced in the kitchen with Friar Leland until she could cook all of Mara’s favorite dishes – and all of her own, too. Abbess Clary didn’t want her to go at first. She wanted Dawnstripe to stay and be the new Badger Mother. But Dawnstripe insisted. She loved Redwall Abbey – loves, Dawnstripe amends in her thoughts. She doesn’t have to stop loving Redwall because she’s leaving it. But Redwall has never been the end of Dawnstripe’s aspirations. It was time to leave, and Salamandastron is as likely a place to go as any.

            Besides, she doesn’t want Mara to leave. Not just yet.

            They cross the dunes in daytime and camp that night on the beach, in a shadow of a log that Mara says the tide won’t reach. She says she just knows. Dawnstripe’s not surprised to find out that she’s right.


End file.
